The Friday Five, Vol. 20

In San Francisco’s Fashion Incubator At Macy’s Heralds New Designers, fashion writer Rowena Ritchie notes that over the years there have been numerous efforts to breathe life into San Francisco’s struggling fashion scene, “so it was a thrilling day for industry pundits when the announcement was made from Mayor Edwin M. Lee’s office on Monday that a new fashion incubator would launch next year.” The Fashion Incubator San Francisco at Macy’s Union Square (FISF), now has a group mission to turn creative fashion apparel designers into successful San Francisco entrepreneurs. We can’t wait to watch and see what happens.

With the healthy future of our environment at stake and a younger, more urban generation so far removed from forest paths and babbling brooks, are we in trouble? In Wanted: More Urban Children To Embrace Nature, writer Sarah Lewis-Hammond says, “Widely reported problems with our increasing penchant for urbanization expand well beyond the economic and environmental, and issues ranging from increasing obesity to widespread depression and stress disorders have been pinned on our proliferation of concrete.” Time to bring in the jackhammers.

If you live in the city of Portland, Oregon, you’re fully aware it’s been rated a top green city in the U.S. so it’s not a surprise that in this past week’s Places & Spaces, the Avalon Hotel and Spa, in Portland, Oregon has been featured. Kara DiCamillo points out that “With a cool architectural design, this luxury retreat is the tenth hotel in the world (and the first in Oregon), to be certified as a LEED hotel by the U.S. Green Building Council.” Pack your bags and go west, young women.

Foodie Underground columnist Anna Brones is back with more cupcake analysis. “Trendy cupcake stores are one thing, and even if I can’t get behind the popularity of the baked good, I’ll agree that they’re colorful, cute and, if you have a sweet tooth, taste good. But restraint is not a virtue Americans possess, and so we weren’t satisfied with adorably stenciled hole-in-the-wall cupcake shops. Instead we had to make the cupcake a national trend on a level of the beanie baby. Cupcakes have literally taken over.” See all the bizarre cupcake accessories you can handle in Burned Out On The Cupcake Trend.

In International Train Traveling To Romance You, Shira Levine explains that “Train travel is one of the cleanest, greenest, and often prettiest modes of transport for seeing the world. Less carbon is burned when riding the rails vs. flying or driving alone and thanks to technology, traveling by train has picked up speed over the last hundred or so years.” Did we mention that it was also totally sexy?

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